Emerging Technologies

For connecting to the real world,
ORNL has developed interfaces to instruments
and experiments. This provides researchers
world-wide with remote access to
specialized equipment.

Robots and Intelligent Machines

By the year 2020, teams of Robots and Intelligent Machines (RIMs) will be
sent to buried waste sites, and over a few weeks they will retrieve,
sort, treat, and package the waste, with only general orchestration from human
operators.

To achieve this objective, challenging inter-disciplinary basic research
issues must be addressed in the near term.

One of the challenges being addressed by ORNL researchers is
improved perception capabilities for RIMs. The method of choice
is use of hyperspectral imaging sensors:

can map environment in many different spectral bands

can correlate spatial and spectral components of image with data "cubes"

can detect features invisible to conventional vision systems (e.g. stress)

The Center for Engineering Science Advanced Research (CESAR)
at ORNL is sponsored by the Engineering Research Program of DOE's Office
of Science.

Quantum Dots

The fabrication, simulation, and implementation on real applications
of Quantum Dots is just one facet of the world-class computational
nano-technology R&D program underway at CESAR/ORNL.

Goals:

Design and fabricate a regular array of mono-dispersed metallic
quantum dots (QDs) that can be operated at room temperature.

By using custom engineered DNA templates, QDs can be placed
at desired spatial locations with desired nanometer-scale periodicity
Derivatized gold particles are directed to assemble by matching
nucleotide sequences along DNA strands. After particles are positioned,
the strands of DNA may be removed using a UV-ozone technique.

Perform first-principles computational simulations of the transport
properties of a fabricated QD device.

Demonstrate first successful implementation of complex application
on the actual QD device

fingerprint image

Arrays of quantum dots in mesoscopic mode follow
dynamic equations that are close in form to neuromorphic algorithms.
ORNL researchers plan to map the dynamic equations of the neuromorphic
associative retrieval orlearning algorithms onto the equations of the
QD array so that QD may be applied to real problems such as seismic
analysis or recognition of facial images and fingerprints.

Entanglement is the key to this new realm of quantum phenomena, and offers
solid prospects for implementing

secure (quantum) cryptography,

quantum-computing algorithms, and

quantum teleportation.

In some sense,
quantum teleportation implies "faster-than-light" (FTL) communication,
where no energy or particles are travelling faster than light, but the wave
function is.
source: APS

By exploiting the delicate quantum phenomena that have no classical
analogues, it is possible to do certain computational tasks much more
efficiently than with any classical computer. These quantum phenomena
allow performance of unprecedented tasks such as breaking "unbreakable"
codes, generating true random numbers, and communicating with messages
that betray the presence of eavesdropping.

In the 60's and 70's, fast computing was done with vector supercomputers.
In the 80's, message-passing machines were introduced.
In the 90's, the availability of fast, low-cost chips revolutionized
the way calculations are performed. During the coming decade,
nanoelectronic technology and optical communication developments
have the potential of further revolutionizing computational science and
engineering.